Industrial chic: how one arty couple transformed their shabby Hackney flat into a trendy warehouse-style home

Photographer Hermione Hodgson finally called time on the two-storey Victorian home she shared with her husband Andy Day and their toddler daughter, Cayce, in 2014.

She was fed up with running up and down stairs between grotty kitchen, dark bedrooms and a living room that ran front to back. What the couple really wanted was a warehouse, with a huge entertaining space and industrial windows looking on to a large garden.

They’d bought the flat — the lower half of a big 1860s terrace house in a conservation area near Victoria Park — in 2006 at breakneck speed.

At the time, homes were going like hot cakes: seven people wanted the duplex flat. Hermione and Andy had just been gazumped on a warehouse conversion so they pounced, and won at sealed bids.

Hermione, now 44, and graphic designer Andy, 49, are artistic and eloquent. Looking back, Hermione says they viewed the flat on a sunny June day when it looked lovely.

They moved in during cold, rainy November, and it was bare and full of cracks and marks on all the walls. “I thought, what have we done?” she says. Even so it had fantastic back garden views from the upper level. It was this that sold it to them.

Andy, who’s Australian, came to London in 1994 to work for Saatchi & Saatchi, and soon met Hermione, who was sharing a houseboat moored in Chelsea. For the next 10 years they rented warehouses around Old Street.

“At first they were available and affordable,” Andy says. “But what cost £200,000 is £2 million now.”

They loved those big spaces lit by industrial windows. They couldn’t afford one but longed for that loft look.

In 2014, having saved for years, they interviewed six architects to overhaul their tired old flat. They wanted a huge living-entertaining space on the lower floor with industrial-style doors to the garden, and bedrooms above. And “honest” materials — concrete, brick, wood, brass, plaster. In effect, a warehouse.

The architects they chose were on the same wavelength and happy for Andy to source items from finishes to pendant and wall lamps. He loves doing that and wanted everything just so. Nothing visually slipshod gets by this highly visual pair: no shoddy finishes, no plastic switches.

After months of careful designing, their scheme went straight through planning, ready to begin in March 2016. The family rented a one-bedroom flat close by.

The design only added 100sq ft but made maximum use of the space. The architects also dug down a foot, which creates good head height, enhancing that warehouse feel and making you forget that, technically, this is a basement. Andy and Hermione kept their neighbours informed throughout.

The work took a year and the difference is remarkable. The grotty old dogleg and the lean-to were demolished, but the big old rolltop bath was stored for reuse.

The area beyond the new glass windows was paved in beautiful herringbone bricks, with softly glowing concrete walls, cast on site, as was the thick concrete ceiling.

The industrial vibe continues. Purplish bricks grouted dark grey wrap the outside and also one wall inside. Painted plaster has a soft pinkish tinge.

A beautiful circular concrete pillar bisects the extensive bespoke black steel glazing going clear across the back. A big skylight perfectly placed over the large oak table gives even more light.

The black kitchen island has a concrete top. The fittings are black or steel, warmed by beautiful brass handles. The new bathroom behind the kitchen has brass fittings and shower rail, and the old-gold gleam lifts the darker tones. A pale oak floor balances the look.

Now, Hermione has a fantastic studio upstairs with another black steel window, wrapping the corner of the room. The bedrooms moved into the old living area.

Andy says: “The house was no good for entertaining. Now we can have friends inside and a barbecue outside, and it’s very sociable.”

Hermione adds: “I thought it would never be finished, but then suddenly it was. One day, heavy snow was swirling outside, turning the view into a wide, white panorama, and it felt like another world.”